They Were Divided (17 page)

He was incapable of uttering another word. As the Comte d’Eu turned away, two young men grabbed Uncle Dani by the arms and carried him out; for everyone knew what was likely to happen when he started bowing so obsequiously.

At one of the side wings of the table sat Balint with Gazsi Kadacsay. Because he was a Member of Parliament and also an imperial Court Chamberlain the organizers had wanted to place
him with the other important guests, but he had refused, preferring to remain with his own close friends to being put on parade at the boredom of the top table. Furthermore when they had met that evening Gazsi had said that he wanted to have a talk with him.

They had not seen each other for some time. At the beginning of the Carnival season Gazsi had been in Kolozsvar for a week or two, and then he had disappeared and been seen no more. At that time everyone had decided that he would shortly announce his engagement to Ida Laczok, for he had dined there three times, danced with her often, and called daily at the Laczok house at the hour when they drank coffee topped with whipped cream. He had even serenaded the girl twice in a week, and so everyone had said that the engagement was imminent. Then he had
suddenly
returned to the country and was seen no more.

At the beginning of the dinner the conversation where Balint and Gazsi were sitting was all about the royal prince’s tour to promote his famous Anti-Duelling League. As they were all young and high-spirited, as well as being from Transylvania, their talk was full of mockery. Among them only Isti Kamuthy and Fredi Wuelffenstein, who were sitting just opposite Balint, took the matter at all seriously; Fredi, not only because he was the league’s general-secretary in Hungary but also because he always liked to know better than anyone else; and Isti, because he had recently become even more anglophile than ever. ‘There are no duelth in England,’ lisped Isti, and for him this settled the question and therefore there could be no further argument about it. Fredi was in perfect agreement, but he was out of temper because he had also thought of the same argument but had not been able to get it out first.

The general conversation was not able to continue for long, for almost at once Laci Pongracz and his musicians entered the hall and started to play and from then on it was only possible to talk to one’s neighbour.

It was Kadacsay who started.

‘I think I owe you something of an explanation,’ he said to Balint.‘I only came this evening because I knew you’d be here.’

‘Why?’ said Balint, surprised. ‘What about?’

‘About Ida. I know there’s been a lot of talk, and that it’s not been all that flattering as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mind what other people think, but I’d hate you to think badly of me too.’

Balint protested that he had no reason to think badly about Gazsi, but the latter went on, saying that when he had returned
home from his visit to Denestornya he had thought a lot about Abady’s suggestion that he should get married and that this would be a solution to many of his problems and perplexities. Finally he decided to try out the idea. He had already decided that young Ida was the only girl who might suit him and who, as a woman, he felt he could bring himself to love. Accordingly he had come to Kolozsvar in the middle of January and at first everything had gone swimmingly. The old Laczoks seemed pleased at the idea of having Gazsi as their son-in-law, so much so that Gazsi admitted to have been quite taken by surprise. ‘To think that of an ass like me …’ he had said to Balint in a
self-deprecating
manner. But though everything went exceptionally well, they never seemed to get further than just dancing together and exchanging jokes. The girl was pretty enough, but somehow this had not seemed quite enough to Gazsi. Surely, he had thought, there must be something more if one was to spend a
lifetime
together. One would have to know what she thought about things, what interested her, and what her opinions were.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was really the problem. The poor girl is very, very stupid!’

He had tried her on all sorts of subjects, some of them quite serious; but when he had started like this, all the silly thing could do was either to stare at him stupidly or start to giggle. She had seemed to think that he was trying to make fun of her and so replied ‘What an odd question!’ and changed the subject to
cooking
, or poultry, or even horses as if she knew that that was all the poor boy really understood. When he had asked what she was then reading, she would answer ‘Nothing! Nothing at all! After all what’s the use? A good housekeeper doesn’t have time for that sort of thing!’

‘It was terrible,’ said Gazsi, and went on to tell Balint how he had finally revolted and dropped his pursuit of the girl. ‘Could I take someone like that into my home? Could I really live my life with such a goose … and go on breeding brats even more useless than me …?’

He said he had decided he could not bear the thought of
someone
who just could not understand what he would want for his children. She would destroy everything for which he had struggled; and this was what he had felt he must explain to Balint, lest his friend should think he had behaved badly in making people think he had pursued the girl and then abandoned her.

‘I shouldn’t think badly of you,’ said Balint. ‘Who am I to
judge other people? Nobody has that right, nobody! And I least of all!’

As he said this Balint’s own face clouded over for he was reminded of the time when he had made that sweet little Lili Illesvary think that he was about to propose to her and had then let the opportunity go by without saying what had been expected of him. Suddenly he remembered how she looked in the library at Jablanka and how she had gazed expectantly at him with her forget-me-not blue eyes …

After that Gazsi and Balint did not speak for some time, so engrossed were they in their own private thoughts.

All at once Gazsi made a gesture with his hand as if he were brushing away some depressing thought. Then he drained his champagne glass, cleared his throat and turned back to Balint with the cryptic phrase, ‘I’ve had Honeydew serviced!’

‘Good God, why? She’s your best hunter, isn’t she?’ Balint was taken by surprise at this statement until he reflected that this was not the first time that Gazsi recently had no longer seemed so keen on what everyone had thought to be his only interest. Perhaps this was just one further example of his new-found
disillusionment
with horses and sport? Whatever it signified it seemed to Balint that somehow Gazsi’s pronouncement was connected with that unexpectedly deep strain of bitterness he had shown each time the two friends had met during the last year.

‘Yes, last week. I sent her to “Gallifar” who is standing at stud at Kolozs. He’s got a good line – by Gunnersbury out of Gaillarde – quite worthy of my good Honeydew.’

Then he went on, speaking in a low voice as if confiding deadly secrets, to give his reasons in a most unnecessarily complicated way, with much repetition and circumlocution. He said that Honeydew was already seven years old which meant it was high time she foaled, and the right age to produce something good and healthy. She was anyhow no use as a saddle-horse for anyone except himself as she would tolerate no one else on her back. It had recently, he said, become an intolerable slavery for him as he had always to be there to exercise her, for he couldn’t entrust her to anyone else and it was no life for a horse just to be lunged for a couple of hours a day. This was much the best solution, for she’d calm down as soon as she was in foal. Then her
temperament
was sure to change and she’d no longer be so dependent on him.

‘What on earth would become of her if I wasn’t there … I
mean, if … if I were to go off on some tr-r-rip. As a r-r-riding horse she’d just die … At least in this way she’ll be of some use.’

Balint found these words disquieting, for he seemed to see in them some connection with their talk at Denestornya when Kadacsay had talked about making his will and about his
attitude
to death. So as to lighten the mood he answered as if he had taken literally what Gazsi had said about going off on some trip.

‘If you’re thinking of being away some time, which I think would be a thoroughly good idea, then I’d suggest Italy. It’s already spring there, especially down in the South, at Naples and in Sicily. You could have Honeydew sent over to Denestornya while you’re away and we’ll give her a paddock all of her own so that she could run free all day long. We often do this with new mares who don’t know the other horses.’

‘Could I really? Do you mean it?’ cried Gazsi joyfully. ‘Are you really sure? Do you know I was just working up to asking you if it might be possible … not now, of course … not yet. But, but, later … if the situation arises … well, it would be
wonderful
.’ And then, seeing the concern in his friend’s expression, he started to talk about all sorts of technical matters concerned with the treatment of mares in foal. He told Balint that he really didn’t have anyone at his own home who was properly qualified and experienced, not like the stud groom at Denestornya, and all the others who had worked for Countess Roza for so many years. A first foaling was always a bit tricky, of course, and quite a delicate matter, especially with such a highly-strung animal as
Honeydew
. Then he started to praise all his mare’s good points and went out of his way to say that problems only arose when one put a saddle on her or tried to ride her; then she would grow wild, but at all other times she was as tame and docile as anyone could wish. If she didn’t have a saddle on her back then she would never kick out, not at man or beast, never!

He talked on for some time having apparently entirely
recovered
his good humour. Then he reached for his glass, filled it to the brim and lifted it to Balint, saying:
‘Servus
–
greetings! My appreciation and thanks … in Honeydew’s name.’

While Balint and Gazsi had been talking about the problem mare, on the other side of the table Isti and Fredi had been ever more heatedly discussing their favourite topic – England. They both worshipped England and all things English, the country itself, English gentlemen, English horses, English sports, English
clothes and footwear, English girls, English bandages for horses’ tendons, English guns and cartridges, English razors, English gardens and English dances. All these things they praised,
sometimes
in unison and sometimes antiphonally, and for a long time all went smoothly. Gradually, however, this harmony somehow produced discord and by the time coffee was served a real quarrel had started. It all began because Fredi, though he spoke English well and knew many English people, had never set foot in the country and so had had to adore his beloved one from afar, and content himself with what he heard second-hand. Isti Kamuthy, on the other hand, spoke English deplorably and had not only been in London the previous year but had also managed to be made a temporary visiting member of that eminent gentlemen’s club, the St James’s.

It had come about in the following way. Isti had been
extremely
active in helping the government candidate at a by-election at Szilagy towards the end of the Coalition. The man had been elected, and when they were all back in Budapest Isti had been singled out for praise by the then Minister for Internal Affairs. Isti, seeing his advantage, had at once stammered out, ‘I h-
h-have
a r-r-request!’ and, when encouraged by Andrassy to blurt it out, said that he would shortly be going to London and would be most grateful for an introduction to the Austro-Hungarian ambassador. Of course he had got his letter and had presented it to the ambassador, Count Mensdorf, as soon as he arrived. Mensdorf asked Isti how he could be of service and it turned out that Isti had only one request and that was somehow to be invited to join the St James’s Club.

The request had verged on the absurd for, in the view of most foreigners and especially of the diplomatic corps, the St James’s was then thought to be the most exclusive club in England to which very few Englishmen aspired even if they possessed the most exalted social background. To be admitted one had to fulfil the most stringent, even if unwritten, conditions; and these applied as much to foreign diplomatists as they did to native Englishmen. A few diplomats had been accepted, but so few that it had been taken as a special mark of distinction. Mensdorf did his best to explain all this to Isti, adding that, according to English etiquette, new members must not speak to any existing member until the other had first introduced himself. This meant that even if Isti did get in it might still be several years before he managed to make any friends and so, the ambassador suggested,
it would really be more sensible if Count Kamuthy dropped the idea altogether. He proposed a wealth of other, most tempting, ideas – invitations to spend the weekend at the houses of
wellknown
peers, shooting parties in Scotland, a car-trip through some of England’s most beautiful countryside, house-parties for the famed Cowes Regatta. Isti was unimpressed. He wanted only one thing, to be elected to the St James’s, and this was his only request. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else!